


A Very Big Year

by BookishPower



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A Big Year, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because you're about to learn, F/M, Have you ever heard of doing a big year?, Other, Our heroes are birders, Rating May Change, more tags as they become relevant, so many birds - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookishPower/pseuds/BookishPower
Summary: In the United Kingdoms of Westeros, there exists a yearly competition of birders. They compete to find the largest number of individual bird species within certain geographical borders. It sounds like the strangest competition, but contestants are honor-bound to be truthful about their findings.Brienne Tarth is a struggling adjunct biology professor with a passion for birding, and the vague hope that a high score in this competition could put her in good stead for tenure. Jaime Lannister, prominent businessman of Casterly Rock, would like nothing more than to spend his days birding, but an incident from years ago means he's not welcomed within the ranks. Perhaps a win would show them.Suddenly, they're in competition with one another, and feathers are getting ruffled. Romance, book references, and many more cheesy bird puns to follow.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, slight Jaime/Cersei
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	A Very Big Year

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I wasn't going to start posting this yet, but then I realized today is National Bird Day, and it could be my own Big Year of sorts to try and finish this one out. Happy National Bird Day! Because I am a shameless pedant, I'm trying to keep to the names of birds as much as possible. If you see an Essosi Starling or an Oldtown Condor, it's because I'm trying to avoid names like European Starling or California Condor.
> 
> For more explanation of a Big Year, see notes at the end. Also, our heroes will be exploring it as we go.

Brienne held her breath, waiting for her quarry to make its move. Her grip tightened on the familiar instrument, cool metal in her grip, concealed in the dense copse of scrub pine. Her neck protested the angle it had been forced into. The wind whipped into her face, stinging her eyes with snow. Her feet ached with the cold, reminding her that she’d been standing there, waiting for at least an hour. 

She did not lift her instrument, fearing to raise the alarm with any sudden movement. Her breath, which froze in the early morning air, was strictly exhaled into the scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth, lest it call attention to her presence. She had occasion to remember her mentor’s advice. _Wait and watch, girl, wait and watch._

A cry from the branches above, and Brienne knew her presence had been noted. Not by her quarry, though, so she still had a chance. 

A shadow swooped, and likewise, Brienne swung into action.

Silhouetted against the pale winter sky, the Northern Hawk Owl perched on a well-worn patch of branch, talons grasping the weathered bark. 

_Click!_

Photographic proof. Brienne’s lips curled up, continuing to press the button as the owl moved its head this way and that, almost as if posing for her. She took a few more pictures, then lowered the camera, changing to her binoculars. 

The movement alerted the owl, and it stared down its beak at her through the binoculars, sharp yellow eyes narrowing as they took her in. The hawk owl’s regard was electric – she could feel her heart beating faster, her frozen breath rapidly seeping through the thick knit of her woolen scarf.

Brienne felt the same thrill she always did when meeting eyes with owls and hawks. Other birds would certainly regard you, but owls outright judged you. The scientific part of her pulled back, reminding her that assigning human feeling to the animal could jeopardize her own behavior in the field. The romantic part of her felt as if she’d caught the attention of a woodland spirit. One that might bless her quest.

The owl fussed with a few feathers on its striped chest for a moment, and Brienne took the time to estimate a rough size, look for any distinguishing marks. She’d note them down later when she felt she could move. 

The hawk owl had evidently decided that she posed little threat, but was worth keeping an eye on. It stayed where it was, and Brienne made a brief note of the kind of tree it was in, the terrain, temperature, and conditions. Not that she needed to check much – she’d been studying irruptions of owls south of the Wall for years. It formed the basis of her doctoral dissertation.

This was an old-timer who seemed to make a habit of returning to this range during irruptions. Brienne had a theory about the sheltered valley making a better habitat for rodents, but that was a research paper for another day.

She’d hoped to find him on this day of all days for sentimental reasons. One, because he was a familiar face. Two, because this perch was favored by many species of hawks in the area, and even if she missed the Northern Hawk Owl, she’d likely catch a few others. 

Three, she was beginning a Big Year, and it seemed like a wise thing to start her year off with an uncommon bird if she could manage it. The Starks, with whom she’d spent the Sevenmas preceding the New Year, lived close to the Wolfswood. Birders themselves, they graciously hosted her for the week.

Ned and she had fine-tuned their binoculars together and spent a few mornings in the godswood with Bran, listening to the birdsong and reviewing her sound memory. Catelyn and Sansa had clucked at her coat and her outdoors gear and set to mending them beside the fire. Robb rolled his eyes at all of it and grabbed Brienne, Jon, and Arya to go play video games in the basement. 

Bran, however, was the only one who seemed to take it as seriously as she did, making his own notations as they read together by the fireplace, looking at range maps and weather predictions, making their own predictions as well. She’d gifted the family with a trail camera, but it was Bran who had taken the most interest in it. Difficult as it could be to get through the snow in his wheelchair, this opened up Bran’s ability to go birdwatching. Ned had made strenuous efforts to clear pathways to let his son explore the land, but the North was rugged terrain. After much time spent debating the placement and angle, she was proud to see the preteen poring over the images captured there, the camera opening up places in his home that he’d not seen since his accident.

She’d slipped out of Winterfell that morning, darting out the door with her duffle over her shoulder before daybreak while the Starks slept off the last night’s excesses, Sansa leaving her a sweet and only slightly drunken note wishing her luck. It was attached to a small bag of freshly-baked lemoncakes to take with her. 

With any luck, she could spy a few more uncommon winter visitors with wings before turning south in a day or two. Irruptions had been reported all over the place lately. She’d already heard the calls of an Eastern Screech Owl, the tapping of a Red-Headed Woodpecker, had been plagued by the constant warning calls of Dark-Eyed Juncos.

All of them, fairly common. All of them she could expect to find at some point in the next three hundred and sixty-six days. None of them would raise any eyebrows among those who counted her tally at year’s end. 

This one might. Hence, the camera.

As if realizing that its presence was no longer strictly necessary, the Northern Hawk Owl stretched out its wings and flew off. Brienne tracked it with her eyes until the bird was no longer visible, likely taking daytime shelter in a thick evergreen copse.

With a sigh, she pulled a notebook out of her pack and began notating with her pencil – types of birds noted, time of day, temperature, general weather conditions, behavior, numbers of them, any other present species, terrain, and anything else she thought might be important. The pink wool of her scarf fell away from her face, and she rubbed her nose with a gloved hand as she felt the humid inside of her nose freeze at the sudden exposure.

If she got out of here in the next hour or two, she could visit a few locals on the outskirts of Wintertown with feeders that usually brought in Evening Grosbeaks. If she was lucky, she could swing by the Ice River and spot a Bald Eagle hunting along the water’s edge – perhaps even a Golden Eagle?

If she was very, very lucky, she could spot a Great Grey Owl some hours north by Molestown. There had been a few reports of them on the Rare Bird Alert hotline, but nothing in the past few days. 

It was almost as far North as she could go and still be obeying the Big Year rules – nothing north of the Wall, nothing south of the Southern coast of Dorne, nothing more westerly than Casterly Rock, nothing more easterly than the Isle of Tarth. A home field advantage that she was determined to use.

She noted down all this information on the first sheet of the notebook, wiggling the cardboard cover to allow it to open more easily. Proudly, she noted the date – the first day of the year, at the top of the page.

This was a monumentally stupid idea, according to some in her department. Successful Big Years required resources beyond her means, time and energy that would better serve her classes and research. Ornithologists could ally with birders, but they were supposed to concentrate on their own work, leave the enjoyment to the civilians.

Brienne didn’t care.

_1/1/2467_

_Wolfswood, Northern Province  
Off the Direwolf Steps Trail, Foothills of Mount Benjen  
6:15 a.m.  
Weather Conditions: Clear, Cold, 5 F, Breeze from the North at 15 mph, Wind Chill – 10 F.  
Snow on ground, roughly two feet worth, higher in some drifts._

_Northern Hawk Owl, perched in oak tree, engaged in self-grooming for a few minutes before flying south_

_Pine Siskins – five observed near trailhead road, eating road salt_

_Common Redpolls – fifteen observed near trailhead road, also eating road salt_

_Northern Cardinal – two heard chirping in maples at sunrise_

_Dark-Eyed Juncos – Undetermined number heard in the woods – at least three_

Brienne looked at the list affectionately. Her first five of the year. She stowed the list in a secure pocket and began her descent from the slope back to the trail, snow crunching and squeaking under her boots.

She shook her fingers out as she walked, joints stiff with the cold, chilblains blazing. She could stand it. She’d stand far worse before this was over. 

There were many numbers to balance in her head at that moment. How much money she had left in her bank account. How much time she had left before the spring semester began. How much time she could allocate to her jobs and how much to this search.

At this moment, though, the only numbers that mattered were these: Five down – at least eight hundred to go.

***

Jaime Lannister began his latest Big Year with a bang.

It wasn’t his intention – he was already up, dressed, and ready to hit the western coastline as soon as the sun crested the horizon. Reports of an Ivory Gull had been trending on the Rare Bird Alert hotline, and Jaime had already seen the bird several times in the last few days.

Only today’s sighting would count, though.

His binoculars were already strapped round his neck, his camera fastened to its harness, a woolen cap shoved onto his head. With every tightened lace, every snap of a plastic clasp, he could feel a part of himself returning home to roost. 

Cersei hadn’t spent the night – she didn’t come to his place much after visiting once and decrying the prints from Ser Audubon hung on Jaime’s walls. Mostly, he came to her.

A few days ago, lying in bed next to her and stroking her beautiful golden hair, Jaime had related that he thought of them as migratory birds. She’d be flying south, and he’d be flying north – but somehow, they’d always meet in the middle.

It was a romantic vision – waiting faithfully at the appointed point, eyes trained on the sky for the return of one’s lover. Snatched moments between the seasons, passion savored and all the sweeter for its brevity and anticipation.

Cersei, however, sat up and began looking for her discarded clothing.

“Always birds,” she muttered, pointing a toe in order to slip her ivory legs into her knickers. “Let’s look at this another way. You’re a man who would rather tramp through the woods looking for birds than accompany me to the gala New Year’s function for…childhood diseases.”

“You don’t even know which disease you’re paying to fight. Hells, you’re not even donating money,” Jaime pointed out. “You’re paying for a ticket to get in, for some overpriced hors d’ouvres, at a party where no one dances.”

“That’s not the point of those, and you know it,” she sniffed. “It keeps my name out there, keeps me involved in those circles of power. You’re a businessman. You understand how it works.”

“I do,” he reluctantly admitted. “But power’s not my goal.”

“What is?” she asked, green eyes flashing. Whenever Jaime looked into them, he was reminded of a hummingbird’s feathers – gleaming, impenetrable, gone in a flash. “Seeing a hundred birds?”

“Eight hundred,” he corrected offhandedly. “Possibly more.”

Cersei made a noise of disgust. “I’ll take Euron, then.” 

Despite the nature of their relationship, Jaime flared with jealousy. “Take him and don’t come back.”

“I don’t have to come back,” she returned, slipping delicate white feet into her heels. “You always come back, though.” At the door, she halted and looked at him over her shoulder. “Like a homing pigeon, I suppose.”

“That’s not a distinct species, that’s…” Jaime’s correction was lost in the slammed door, and he dropped from his elbows, back into the pillow. He drew a deep breath into his lungs, and exhaled a mixture of disappointment, jealousy, and Cersei’s perfume.

Other couples made it work. Birders and non-birders who traded off birding expeditions with their partner’s hobby. He just needed to discover what it was that Cersei enjoyed doing, besides acquiring power and using it to destroy people she took a misliking to.

Three years into their off-and-on relationship, and he was no closer to the truth. She liked wine. Perhaps he could take her on a winery tour in the Reach? And while they were there, he could potentially get a glimpse of a Kirtland’s Warbler or a Red Range Condor…

He fell asleep to the possibility of kisses flavored with wine, ears filled with the low-pitched bubbling warble of rare birdsong.

Now, he stepped outside his family home, the sun beginning to warm the horizon, and headed towards the low roar of the ocean. The indistinct calls of gulls pulled him forward, boots crunching along the gravel.

These were the best mornings, remembered from his childhood. Mother, walking him and Tyrion out onto the rocky beach in the early morning, bundled against the cold. A hundred toys, a dozen summer camps, a handful of nannies and other caretakers, and his clearest and most favorite memories were cold mornings with his hand in his mother’s, Tyrion on the other side. His little brother combed shells out of the sand, while Jaime chased flocks of gulls just to hear his mother and brother laugh.

Their mother passed, taking all the joy from life. Tyrion grew no taller, their father grew no warmer, and Jaime tried desperately to expand himself to fill the void their mother left. Smiling and encouraging Tyrion, whaling hell out of those who would make his life a misery, patching up scraped knees and bruised feelings. Smiling and nodding at his father, reassuring him that he was doing well, never taking his problems or worries to his father’s ear, following him with some reluctance into business.

Neither one of them truly understood his love for birds, nor his disgrace in the birding world. Tyrion would occasionally accompany him out on a local watch, but could not pretend interest for more than an hour or two. Tyrion didn’t understand what it was to have the insiders of the world he loved turn away from him, regard him as an example of everything that the hobby shouldn’t be.

It was Tyrion, thank goodness, who finally keyed into his brother’s struggle. Gifted with the requisite acumen for sizing up a situation and making a tidy profit off of it, Tyrion nudged his brother in the direction of consulting. It allowed Tyrion the power to guide the company in the right direction, and Jaime the freedom to travel from branch to branch in order to strengthen the company as a whole, keep it running smoothly and strategically focused.

It also gave Jaime the freedom to search for birds as he traveled. Word traveled fast in birding circles, but he was still able to cross Westeros in search of rarities, still able to stand in awe of a flock of Sandhill Cranes or marvel at the varied jewels that were warblers, listen with all his concentration to birdsong in order to pick out the notes of the one bird he searched for. He trod desert and prairie, remote islands and rocky mountains, visiting different branches of their company and searching out birds to add to his list.

For this Big Year, though, he wanted to start on home territory.

He crossed the beach in the early predawn, the roaring of the tide loud in his ears. He bypassed the smoky remnants of firepits built and abandoned by New Years’ revelers, and hoped the fireworks from last night and their smoke hadn’t frightened away too many of the shorebirds.

Thankfully, he spotted a small gathering of gulls poking about some leftover trash. Jaime focused in with his binoculars, examining plumage and size.

A few Herring Gulls, recognizable by the lipstick-red dot on their bill. A few more Ring-Billed Gulls, the tell-tale black ring around their yellow bill noted and then just as easily dismissed.

Common species, both of them. Jaime’s lips tugged down, and he lowered his binoculars a fraction, scanning elsewhere for more birds. He was a little disappointed not to see the Ivory Gull first. Seeing such a rarity first on his first Big Year day would have been a wonderful bit of good luck. But he checked boxes next to their species on his birding list, a bit chagrined that the first species should be something so common.

He sighed and continued with the work of scanning the horizon. 

The sunlight burned stronger, and the sun crested the horizon. In the increased light, Jaime was able to observe the burnt-out ends of abandoned fireworks and empty beer cans, piles of bladder wrack washed up along the shore, and the sleeping bodies of a few partiers who’d preferred the sand and rock to attempting a drive home.

He’d also found a Great Black-Backed Gull, a small flock of Black-legged Kittiwakes on a rocky outcropping, a Least Tern, a Thick-Billed Murre and several Common Murres, a nervous flock of Sanderlings that scattered ahead of him as he paced down the beach, a Stilt Sandpiper, and had been lucky enough to spot a Wildland Loon wintering in the Westerland seas.

And yet, no Ivory Gull. The bird had favored a certain patch of shoreline in the early morning hours, but perhaps early morning fireworks and lingering smoke had driven it away.

Disappointed, Jaime began the trek home. Few species would be out now that he hadn’t already seen that day. He’d hit the beach again that evening. In the meantime, he could begin work on a sheaf of documents, begin the training Powerpoints that needed to be completed.

Get through enough of this fast enough, and he could scan the Rare Bird Alerts in the area for any action, start planning ahead for birds that he might see on his trip to Sunspear later that month. If he really got things done, he could drive to the estuaries outside Lannisport – there were always a few good species to find there.

He stopped in his tracks for every whitish bird that he encountered, but the Ivory Gull eluded him. Small, short-legged, and a pure white that drew the breath from any birder’s lungs, it was a rare occurrence south of the Wall.

As home was in sight, Jaime relaxed, began pulling the binocular strap from about his neck. A flash of white wings, however, and he scrambled for his camera, hands trembling as he focused through the lens.

For a moment, all Jaime felt was disappointment and anger that he’d let himself hope. This wasn’t an Ivory Gull – it had light grey wings…

Jaime blinked hard, then began snapping photos. Light grey wings with a white body, a wedge-shaped tail. White belly feathers with a pinkish wash. A chinstrap that resembled a necklace curled round its throat, and a bill like a sunflower seed opened up to shriek indignantly at a Ring-Billed Gull getting too close.

A Ross’s Gull. A rarity among rarities. Jaime scrambled to take picture after picture, the gull none the wiser, but concentrating on investigating the ground on which it stood.

It finally noticed Jaime, and fixed him with a stare that implied it knew exactly what he was doing. It watched him beadily, staring him down across the gravel of his drive. The other gulls around it sprang up and flew away, but this one stood in place.

Jaime, done with his pictures, drew his binoculars up to take a better look. At his movement, the gull sprang from the ground and took off back toward the sea. Jaime watched it go, admiringly.

Not what he was looking for, but not a bad start to the year by any means. Not at all. A denizen of the icy North, it was rarely seen south of the Wall. He wrote it in with a flourish, pleased to begin the new year on this note. A bird so rare that it wasn’t even on the pre-written list of Westerosi birds.

He would have to report it on the Rare Bird Sightings online, see if anyone else could back up his discovery. Jaime was reluctant to report it on the first day of the new year – everyone who was in the know would automatically guess he was off on a Big Year. But if he didn’t report it now, and waited until next year, the association, who already looked at him with a great deal of suspicion, would question it. Better to leave a paper trail.

He felt the beginnings of a smirk pulling one side of his mouth up. An auspicious beginning to a _very_ Big Year.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Most people are familiar with the birder's "Big Year" from the Steve Martin/Owen Wilson/Jack Black movie that came out a few years ago. Pretty cute, but I stand by the book being better - "A Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession" by Mark Obmascik. It's an excellent book that captures the spirit of birding in a way that no other book I've read can.
> 
> Essentially, you have one year - from 12:00 a.m. on Jan. 1st to 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31st to log as many different species in the US as you can. There are strictly defined borders - you can't go birding in Mexico or Canada, though you can wait along those borders for the bird to enter the country. We'll get more into details in the story.
> 
> Also, irruptions is not an incorrect spelling of eruptions - when birds irrupt, it means that they deviate from their normal range. An irruption of snowy owls in winter, for example, means that they're found much further south than they usually go. Just wait till we get to the explanation for fallout. Birders are a dramatic lot.
> 
> I am a birder as well. I've never done a Big Year or even a Big Month, to be honest. But I have done Big Days. When I first got into the hobby and was taken under the wing of a master birder in my area, I thought this would just be a nice way to spend a spring day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Instead, these two old birders tossed me into their back seat and tore off, burning rubber from their tires as they raced from location to location, bouncing over ice heaves and potholes from winter on old mountain roads to get as many birds as they could in 24 hours. It's kind of difficult not to get into the spirit of things when these two are high-fiving each other over rare finds and screaming "Go, go, go! They can fly!" "We need to get to the McDonald's up in Tuftonboro! There's either a raven or a fish crow in their dumpster!" (and yet finding a few spare minutes to prank me with a fake wooden woodpecker) Not to mention the wonder of being out in the early morning and seeing moose and beavers and all sorts of animals besides birds. So I'm going to attempt to try to replicate that spirit a little bit, even though people doing a Big Year cannot possibly burn the same kind of energy for 365 days as those doing just one Big Day can.


End file.
